SouthernBabyBiscuits: Charity Water

A little over a month ago, I asked my grandchildren to help me raise money for an organization called Charity Water. http://www.charitywater.org/about/I gave each of them an empty water bottle and asked them to fill it with pennies. For the last month, I have tossed every penny I've received in change at the grocery store or fast food window into a little tray in my car. Later I would transfer these to my own water bottle where I've been saving for our donation. I first learned of Charity Water through my niece's blog http://www.througheyeswideopen.wordpress.com/where she'd posted a youtube video about the founder of Charity Water. Scott Harrison, founder of Charity Water was recently featured on 20/20 in a piece they did about how to save lives around the globe. Please watch the following youtube video to see the kinds of results giving to this organization can bring to places like West Africa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rphhfy4qCfc

About a week ago, my daughter hosted a cookie swap for the holidays. We decided that she could ask everyone attending to simply bring in the spare change they had in their purses to donate to this same cause. Some of the ladies donated cash and others brought in quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies which we deposited into empty water bottles. In years past we have used the swap as a time to raise funds for other worthy causes and we've never been disappointed. With many folks feeling the pressure of our current economy, we thought everyone would be able to come up with a handful of change. We also hoped to make others aware of this beautiful organization and the great work it is doing.

Today I had the pleasure of counting and rolling all the change with the help of my two grandchildren. It was really fun to see how excited they were to help and also to discover how much they'd collected individually as well as the amount collected at the cookie swap. I am happy to report that through our small individual effort of collecting pennies and the change donated by a small group of women we have very close to one hundred dollars. I am so pumped to be able to write a check to Charity Water for this amount of money this Christmas.

My grandchildren and I have decided to take our empty bottles and begin again. If you would like to support Charity Water and live in our area, we would love for you to join our efforts to collect spare change until Easter. Or perhaps you'd like to find your own unique way to raise funds for clean water this coming year.Scott Harrison began his journey by simply asking friends to donate money for his birthday.